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Above, the rear of the PCB with the backplate removed.
Nvidia are using 4GB of high grade Samsung GDDR5 memory on the reference card. We cleaned the thermal paste from the GPU core and GM204 markings are shown as ‘GM204-400-A1'.
Nvidia have incorporated a 4 phase power supply with overvoltaging capability. This is given the task of feeding the GM204 GPU with power. An extra power phase is dedicated to delivering power to the GDDR5 memory.
The Geforce GTX980 runs at higher clock frequencies than any other reference Nvidia card before it. They have incorporated integrated dynamic power balancing circuitry to ensure the GPU gets the power delivery evenly across all three power sources (each 6 pin connector and the PCI e slot).
With the dynamic power balancing system in place, the card will direct power from each connector when needed. If one power source is at the limit, the card will draw power from the others to balance it out. This is a feature exclusive to the GTX 980 and GTX 780 Ti.
Special thanks to Mike over at Techpowerup for sending me over the latest beta version of GPUZ to fully support the Geforce GTX980. I felt like I was living in an episode of Back To The Future seeing a ‘release date' of 19th September, when I started working on this review around the 13th.
The GM204 GPU is manufactured on the 28nm process. There are 64 ROPS, 128 Texture units and 2,048 CUDA Cores. The core speed is clocked at 1,127mhz with a turbo boost to 1,216mhz. The 4GB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1,753mhz (7Gbps effective).
Overclocking and testing at ‘maximum performance‘
Our review today features the reference Nvidia Geforce GTX980 against a series of overclocked custom cooled cards from Nvidia and AMD partners.
As we are only reviewing a reference GTX980 today we felt it was worthwhile to get the overclocking out of the way first – and include additional results with the card overclocked to the limit throughout the rest of the review. This should give a better indication of performance you could expect from overclocked partner GTX980 solutions when they are released to market over the coming weeks.
To overclock the Nvidia GTX980 today, we used the latest version of MSI's Afterburner tool (Version 4.0.0), which is based on Rivatuner.
Nvidia partners are going to have a field day with the GTX980. There is clearly plenty of headroom available via the new Maxwell core. We managed to get almost 18 percent extra, hitting a stable peak at 1,329mhz with a couple of tweaks to the core voltage and Power limit settings. The Boost speed could be increased from the default speeds of 1,216 mhz to 1,418 mhz. This is a mighty overclock for a high end graphics card.
The memory exhibited a little headroom, but we left it at the default settings as it really doesn't affect the overall scores that much and partners don't tend to overclock memory much beyond the reference rated clock speeds anyway.
I’m not too excited about this gen.. I was expecting alot more from maxwell. Either way I will own the card when it comes out. I would like to see what the card actually performs like myself and see if the new features can bring it to Amd’s IQ level..
Waiting for the Next Gen Volta
How is this card running cool? Look at the reported temps it is the hottest of all tested. Across all reviews it averages roughly 73-75 degrees gaming and higher under extreme loads. If you were to overclock it, it would be extremely hot, reference r9 290x hot, way too hot!
And you haven’t taken fan speed into consideration. Turning the fan up to 100% on a reference high end GTX is still very much bearable in terms of noise. Extra fan noise for extra performance and stable temps. That’s how it always goes. Unlike the 290x that was a searing, red hot 95c at STOCK and ridiculously loud fans from AMD’s shitty reference design. If you want to keep those overclocks quiet then you buy an third party design. No one should ever intend to run a reference card overclocked off its balls anyway. Stop whining.
In sli the top card will be at the 90+ degree mark, no overclock. Just look at the numbers. Fan speed will not correct this. The really interesting card in all of this is the 970. I think it represents a revolution in price/performance, while the 980 cards are overkill for low res and just as incapable as all the others at multi display and/or 4K resolutions. The 20nm or sub 20nm cards are only a year or so away. As for stop whining, are you emotionally invested in a simple bit of conjecture? Its ok to have an opinion without espousing childishness.
Now you can read the most recent owner reviews on newegg and see how true my comments were in actual practice. This is not a jab. It is just a continuance of a prior conversation. Please do not get upset.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487068&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo